


a letter which i composed

by pacificnewt



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, The Duel, but it’s one-sided, dolokhov is in love with anatole, dolokhov’s recovery, the love letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 03:45:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19782583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacificnewt/pseuds/pacificnewt
Summary: Dolokhov is recovering from his duel with Pierre. Anatole asks him for a favor.





	a letter which i composed

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this listening to hozier and i cried a little im back on my great comet bullshit

The first to hit is the shock. After the shock comes the disbelief. After the disbelief comes the pain.

The surrounding crowd gasps– the lady screams– and somewhere in the world, a revered assassin is shot. Somewhere in the world is Moscow, Russia. The revered assassin is Fedya Dolokhov.

“Shot by a fool,” he spits, covering his fresh wound with his left hand. “My turn.” Fedya raises his weapon with his right arm, his injured arm. Pierre drops his own gun and holds his arms out with eyes closed, head tilted back, almost seemingly anticipating his death. Fedya fires and a strange silence rings out post-gunshot.

Pierre stands, bewildered. His hands are panicked and they pat down his body in wonder. The siblings standing by are wide-eyed and terrified.

Fedya falls to his knees. He would have wished it weren’t so dramatic, had he not just been shot and been unable to be too concerned with the details. “Missed, missed…” He looks at his hands stained with his own blood and licks his lips cautiously. “Oh, my mother, my angel! My adored angel mother!”

The sister nudges her brother and points at Fedya. “Take him away.”

Her brother seems to catch himself slipping from reality. He turns hastily to his hurt friend and attempts to help him up. Fedya hits his hands away and throws him a glare as though to say “I can handle my own damn self”. He walks alongside him anyways. Somewhere along the way, Fedya faints in the snow.

  
  
  


When he wakes, he is in a bed. His shirt has been removed and he has a cloth wrapped tightly around the unfortunate hole in his arm. He hears a light snore and winces. He turns his head to see the very same brother, his dearest friend, Anatole.

Anatole’s eye opens as soon as Fedya looks at him. Fedya thinks he looks stupid, laid back in a chair with his boots on the table. “Morning, sleepyhead,” Anatole coos.

“Tolya,” Fedya says quietly. “What are you doing here?”

“I was waiting for you to wake up.” Anatole takes his boots down from the table and leans on his elbows that lay on his thighs.

Fedya manages a tired smile. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Anatole nearly laughs. “Pierre challenged you to a duel. You, uh…” He gestures to Fedya. “You lost.”

Fedya rolls his eyes. “I mean after that. I must have passed out at some point.”

“You refused my help and you collapsed,” Anatole says in a rather condescending tone. “You’ve been asleep for a day and a half.”

“Ah.” Fedya clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably. “How’s Pierre?”

“Fine,” Anatole responds. “He’s unharmed. And you’re expected to make a full recovery.”

Fedya seems to breathe a small sigh of relief.

The two sit in mutual silence for a few moments, neither looking at the other. Fedya looks at the foot of his bed and Anatole looks at the ground.

“Well,” Anatole says at last, “I’d best be going.”

“Of course,” Fedya mumbles, still gazing in front of him. “I’ll see you, then.”

Anatole nods. He stands, brushes himself off, bends at the waist, gives Fedya a quick kiss to the forehead, and hurries out the door.

Fedya closes his eyes and sheds a single tear.

  
  
  


When Fedya wakes in the morning Anatole is there once again. He’s brought a bottle of liquor and two glasses. Anatole is looking out the window.

“Anatole?” 

His head whips around and he smiles at Fedya. “Good morning.”

“Couldn’t stay away, could you?” Fedya grins and runs one of his hands through his hair.

“More like, ‘I was bored’.” 

Fedya nods toward the alcohol he’s brought. “Already? It’s morning.”

“Morning?” Anatole raises an eyebrow and chuckles. “It’s evening, my friend. The sun is nearly setting.”

Fedya blinks in surprise and wipes at his eyes. “It looked like a sunrise. Have I slept another day?”

Anatole nods. “Mhm.” He begins pouring both of them a drink and sniffs heavily. “I think you could use some.”

“I could always use some,” he laughs.

Anatole hands him his drink and they quickly tap them together. The two sip and sigh happily. “To a speedy recovery,” Anatole says. He sits on Fedya’s bed and drinks some more.

They pass the hours sitting, talking, laughing, slowly making their way through the bottle. When the bottle threatens emptiness, Anatole moves closer to his friend.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Tolya.”

Anatole takes Fedya’s hand and presses a rather messy kiss to it. Fedya feels his heart slowly creep up his throat. He coughs in order to breathe, face flushed and eyes blown wide.

“I love you, Dolokhov,” Anatole slurs. 

And Fedya feels as though he did the day of the duel– weak and dizzy– he feels like fainting.

“I, uhm, Tolya—“

Anatole’s already passed out, sprawled out across his friend’s bed. This time Fedya sheds more than one tear.

  
  
  


Fedya wakes up before Anatole the next day. He sits in bed quietly, unmoving, until about an hour later when Anatole shoots up.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Fedya says sarcastically.

Anatole rubs his eyes and groans. “Christ, my head.”

“You had way too much to drink, buddy.” Fedya pats Anatole’s shoulder and he winces.

“Mm.” He props himself on his elbows on the bed and suddenly frowns. “Fedya?”

“Eh?”

“Did I say anything last night? Anything weird?”

Fedya flushes and tries his best to act confused. Luckily for him, Anatole is dense, and he thinks the effort is genuine. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just anything out of the ordinary.”

“Uh, no?” Fedya clears his throat. “No, not that I can recall.”

“Hm. Alright.” Anatole stands up shakily and messes with his already messy hair. “If I did, though, I meant nothing by it. Just drunk talk, you know?”

Fedya feels a worse pain than the gunshot. He feels as though he’s been stabbed multiple times in the stomach and then finally in his heart. He swallows hard and nods. “Of course. Duh.”

Anatole smiles and nods. “Right. I’ll be back later.” He leaves without another word.

Fedya closes his eyes and bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.

  
  
  


When Anatole returns he is holding paper and writing utensils. Fedya looks unamused.

“Fedya, I have a favor to ask!”

“From little ol’ me?” He forces a smile. “What do you need?”

“Will you write me a love letter?”

Fedya chokes on his breath and coughs. “You want me to write you a love letter?”

“Not from you to me,” Anatole elaborates. “From me to Natalie Rostova.”

Fedya tilts his head to the side. “Why?”

“I want to give her a letter expressing my affection, though you’ve always been better with words than I. Will you write her something and sign it as me?”

Fedya feels crushed. Would he stoop so low as to compose something for the man he loves that encaptures his love for another? The answer is yes, because he cares about him and can never find it in him to say no. He feels as though his break is breaking in a very literal sense. “Yeah, I can do it.”

“Wonderful!” Anatole leaps for joy and sets the materials down on Fedya’s bed. “I’ll be back in eventually, but work at your own pace. Don’t overdo it, alright?”

Fedya nods brokenly, and Anatole winks. He leaves before either can get in another word. Fedya decides he will not be going to sleep, not that night, or possibly ever again.

  
  
  


He writes with the guidance of the moonlight that seeps in through his window. Fedya decides he will pour his heart into this letter as though the end of it will kill him. He writes and writes, racking his brain for every creative metaphor and piece of figurative language he can come up with. He has a way of making it sound sincere and genuine. Fedya shifts in bed and concludes his letter with one final expression of love.

He goes back over it to fill in the empty spaces. He made gaps where he desperately wants to write “Anatole”. He fills them in with “Natasha”. At the very end, where he wants to sign it “Yours, Fedya Dolokhov”, instead he writes “With love, Anatole Kuragin”.


End file.
